


I follow the shadow that you left behind

by hakyeonni



Series: little incubus [13]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Succubi & Incubi, Angst, Blood and Injury, But no one dies, M/M, Vampires, everyone is dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 18:02:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakyeonni/pseuds/hakyeonni
Summary: helpless in the face of an enemy he cannot defeat, hakyeon is yet again forced to choose between the two he loves most.





	I follow the shadow that you left behind

It’s the noise that’s the worst part.

Hakyeon can deal with the blood—which isn’t so much pouring out of Wonshik but rather oozing out, like he’s leaking—because he’s seen that before, and it’s easy enough to go through the motions of ripping the fabric from Wonshik’s body to see the wounds properly. He can deal with how those wounds look, gaping and clean, three straight gashes through his body, wide and deadly. He can even deal with how, when he grabs Wonshik’s arm, the skin peels off his forearm in one great swathe leaving nothing but the muscle and sinew underneath.

But the sound of Wonshik keening from pain, blood dribbling from his mouth, his ears, his nose—that hurts him so much it’s like Taekwoon has run him through, too, and he almost wishes he had. Surely it can’t hurt as much as this.

“Don’t breathe,” he mutters, but it comes out choked with the sob he’s holding back. Wonshik is trying desperately to breathe around the blood that is no doubt filling his useless lungs—they are all creatures of habit, after all, and at their base level they are still _human_. Or they were. Their humanity is all they have left, even at the end.

No. This is not the end for Wonshik. He refuses to even entertain that concept.

“I’m still—alive—asshole,” Wonshik manages to slur, and then coughs, spraying Hakyeon with blood. “Don’t—don’t tell me what to do.”

Hakyeon smiles through the tears. “Shut up,” he sobs, and pulls Wonshik closer. He looks fucking awful. The sun was only on him for thirty seconds, _at most_ , and yet his face is horribly burnt, the skin red and raw. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Hongbin, that night he died, and Hakyeon shies away from that memory. “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he says again, shifting on fangs as he speaks. “Drink.”

Wonshik’s eyes flutter shut as Hakyeon bites into the skin of his own wrist and holds it up to Wonshik’s mouth. For a moment he thinks Wonshik won’t—either because he does not want to, or because he’s passed out, Hakyeon’s not sure—but then he latches on and starts drinking, taking Hakyeon’s energy as he does, not bothering to make it feel good. It fucking _hurts_. He welcomes the pain, though. It’s a distraction, a way for him to stay in the moment, something to help him focus on the here and now. He cannot turn Wonshik. He doesn’t know how to heal him, but he is not going to stand back and watch him die. He won’t let Taekwoon have this.

“Wonshik hyung!”

Hongbin’s cry is agonised as he comes up the stairs and sinks down onto his knees next to Wonshik, one hand held over his own chest, the other fluttering in the air like he’s not sure what to do. Hakyeon only just sees the streaks of red down his cheeks before he suddenly finds it hard to sit up and slumps over next to Wonshik. “Are the wounds healing?” he whispers, wanting to close his eyes but not trusting Wonshik to not die if he does.

Hongbin doesn’t even hesitate. Wonshik has taught him well. He splays a hand on Wonshik’s chest, just below the wound there—it’s right through his heart; Taekwoon probably thought he was being funny—before he slides two fingers inside it. Wonshik jerks, and Hakyeon moans as he takes more energy greedily, but Hongbin narrows his eyes. “No,” he snarls. “He’s not bleeding anymore, but they’re not closing like they should be.”

“True immortal weapons,” Hakyeon whispers, letting his eyes flutter shut. Wonshik’s still drinking. He should probably stop, but he doesn’t have the energy to pull away. “He won’t heal.”

“What the fuck do you mean he won’t heal?” Hongbin sobs. “He can’t—he can’t not heal. He’s a fucking vampire. He _heals_.”

“Old magic,” is all Hakyeon says, before he closes his eyes against the oncoming darkness.

//

So much blood. So, so much blood. It’s _everywhere_.

It paralyses Sanghyuk for a moment. The only time he’s ever seen that much blood is—well. That night. Hakyeon stripping him of who he was before giving it back, fragmented. Sanghyuk’s life bleeding out onto his nice cream carpet. The way Hakyeon had looked, sticky with the crimson of Sanghyuk’s humanity. The way it had felt to taste the infinite, and the way he was sure he was dying.

It’s tempting to give into the panic that’s pulsing at the corners of his vision, threatening to overwhelm him—this is so familiar that it chokes him, and he finds that it’s suddenly hard to breathe. But then Hakyeon slumps into unconsciousness, and Hongbin looks up at him with a blood-streaked face, and Sanghyuk takes a deep breath and finds oxygen. They need him.

“Wonshik,” he blurts, dropping onto his knees next to Wonshik and gripping Hakyeon’s wrist. “Let go. You’ve taken enough.”

Wonshik opens his eyes, and Sanghyuk nearly recoils. His eyes are completely filled with blood, and not in the way that Hongbin’s are; the sclera is a startling scarlet, and the effect is incredibly disarming. “Not healing,” he rasps, and bites into Hakyeon’s wrist again.

“You’re going to kill him,” he pleads, but Wonshik takes no notice. “Wonshik hyung—”

Hongbin’s not being helpful in any capacity, so he places one hand on Wonshik’s forehead, and, using that as leverage, manages to rip Hakyeon’s wrist away. Wonshik hisses, but Sanghyuk is too busy turning to Hakyeon, gathering him in his arms and standing up, trying desperately to ignore how wrong he feels. It’s not just that he’s horrifically limp. Sanghyuk doesn’t feel anything through the bond, not even Hakyeon’s dreaming thoughts, and it’s this that terrifies him.

“Get Wonshik,” he barks, and starts back down the stairs. “We need to fix them both, now.”

//

Sanghyuk feels no guilt at glamouring one of Hakyeon’s neighbours, whom he catches in the lift, presumably going to work. She recoils as they advance on her—they’re both smeared with blood, Hongbin’s having dried in eerie tracks down his cheeks—but they don’t give her a chance to scream. It’s easy enough to drag her back to the room and push her in Wonshik’s direction; he falls on her like a rabid animal, his hand wrapped across her mouth, and Sanghyuk looks away as he feeds.

“She’s not empty,” Hongbin says afterwards, the woman in his arms. “Hakyeon hyung—”

“You fix your maker and I’ll fix mine,” he snarls in reply, turning away.

Hongbin didn’t deserve that, but he doesn’t know what to do; Hakyeon’s heart is beating, and he’s breathing, but his breaths are shallow and he doesn’t respond to any of Sanghyuk’s efforts to wake him up. The logical conclusion is that he is out of energy, but how is Sanghyuk meant to help him feed?

“Sanghyuk,” Hongbin calls from the other bedroom.

He stands there for a moment, wracked with guilt. Hakyeon looks very pale and small, lying there amongst all the blankets he has on his bed—but he’s breathing, and he’s alive, and that’s more than Sanghyuk can say for Wonshik right now so he turns away, hating himself a little for this but hating Taekwoon more.

“What—” he says, rounding the corner, cutting himself off before he can go any further.

He’d expected Wonshik to be better by now, no matter what Hakyeon had muttered in his delusion as he slipped away; he’s seen firsthand how vampires heal from wounds, given enough blood. Considering the state of the woman’s neck as Hongbin hauled her away, and with how much he took from Hakyeon, Wonshik should have had enough to at least allow him to begin healing properly. But instead he’s lying on the bed, moaning as he bleeds, and Sanghyuk’s heart drops into his stomach. “What the fuck?”

“He’s not healing,” Hongbin says, and when Sanghyuk looks up he can see he’s crying again. “He’s not _healing_. Look.”

It takes every last bastion of strength Sanghyuk has to sidle closer to the bed to do as he’s told. The blood that Wonshik has just ingested is flowing out of him again—his eyes, his nose, his mouth, the wounds in his abdomen. It’s awful. All he can see is red, everywhere he looks, and all he can smell is the sharp tang of fresh blood. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know,” Hongbin sobs, holding so tight to Wonshik’s poor burnt hand the skin beneath is beginning to tear away. “I don’t know anything about true immortal weapons. I don’t know why he’s not healing.”

“Won’t heal.” Hearing Wonshik’s voice is such a shock that they both flinch viscerally. “That’s—that’s why they’re so deadly.” He coughs, a horrible wet, rattling sound, and Sanghyuk grits his teeth. “Where’s Hakyeon?”

Sanghyuk does not want to answer him. How can he explain that he’s lost and floundering and just barely keeping his head above water while the others all cling to him? “We need Jaehwan,” he mutters to Hongbin as he turns away, figuring he needs to do something to keep his hands busy.

He grabs a towel from the bathroom and folds it up, hesitating for only a second before pushing down on the wounds. Wonshik screams like a banshee, his blood-filled eyes whirling around horribly, and Hongbin screams with him before his legs give way, his eyes fluttering closed. “No, no, no,” Sanghyuk blurts, taking his hands away from Wonshik to reach for him. “Hongbin, not you too, come on, get up—”

“Past dawn,” Hongbin croaks, and with shock Sanghyuk realises he’s right. It’s way, _way_ past dawn, and the only thing keeping Hongbin awake is—is apparently nothing, because he passes out right there at Sanghyuk’s feet, his head hitting the floor with a sickening _crack_. The cherry on top of it all, of course, is that when Sanghyuk turns around he finds that Wonshik is gone, too, and he genuinely can’t tell if he is sleeping or dead.

Left alone in that dark room with nothing but two corpses for company, Sanghyuk finally bursts into tears.

//

He compartmentalises. That’s how he copes. He cannot wake Hongbin up—he needs to sleep. He cannot wake Hakyeon up—he does not know how. He cannot lie there on the floor while Wonshik’s blood slowly drips onto him—that is unhelpful. He cannot summon Jaehwan—if Jaehwan could even be summoned. What he can do is get up. He does this slowly. Then he makes his way to the kitchen, still moving slowly because if he moves too fast he might shatter entirely, and fetches Hakyeon’s “just for emergencies” first-aid kit (Sanghyuk has overheard the vampires teasing Hakyeon about having it, because why would he ever need one?).

Then, still moving slowly because he really has all the time in the world, he cleans and dresses Wonshik’s wounds to the best of his ability. There’s no sutures in the kit, so he just squishes the edges together and bandages them shut, hoping that will be enough. It’s probably useless; if Wonshik’s body really is determined to give up on him, no amount of cotton wool will help. But it calms him slightly to do this, and by the time he’s finished Wonshik looks better—even if the bandages are slowly turning red in front of his eyes.

Next: Hongbin. That is easy. He grabs Hongbin’s wrists and drags him into the other bedroom, hauling him on top of the bed and arranging his limbs so he doesn’t look quite so dead. The blood on his face unnerves him, so he cleans that too, taking his time so he doesn’t start crying again.

Finally he makes his way to Hakyeon’s bedroom and crawls onto the bed next to him. For a moment he can just lie there and watch Hakyeon’s chest rise and fall, and if he tries _really_ hard he can pretend Hakyeon’s still sleeping after a long night of drinking and fucking. Jaehwan doesn’t exist. Neither does Taekwoon. In Sanghyuk’s fantasy, they’re a family again, proper and whole and not bleeding or dying.

But then he reaches out to touch, and feels how cold Hakyeon is underneath his fingers, and shudders. “You’re dying too, aren’t you, hyung?” he whispers, and shuffles closer. “Don’t die. Please don’t die. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Hakyeon doesn’t reply.

“Hakyeon hyung,” he says again, gripping Hakyeon’s chin and turning his head. His eyelids don’t even flutter. He looks like he’s in a fucking coma, and it’s this that has the panic rising in him, as much as he tries to tamp it down. “Hyung. Please.”

Hakyeon, of course, does not reply.

“Hyung,” Sanghyuk sobs, and kisses him.

At first he doesn’t know what he’s doing. A kiss of farewell? He’s so useless. He has no idea what he’s doing and he’s only been immortal for a few months. How can he help Hakyeon when he doesn’t even know what he can do? But he tugs Hakyeon’s limp body closer and deepens the kiss, out of desperation rather than anything else, and whimpers a little bit. If he could just—if Hakyeon could just—if he could just _give_ , rather than taking, maybe, maybe—

Hakyeon splutters to life underneath his hands, and Sanghyuk shrieks in shock and drops him.

“No,” Hakyeon moans, and pulls him closer again. “Sanghyuk, I need to feed. Wonshik drained me.”

“Won’t you drain me, too?” Sanghyuk whispers, his heart racing.

Hakyeon pauses to shudder, his back arching, and when he opens his eyes again they’re glowing yellow. “I won’t take more than I need,” he says, and cups Sanghyuk’s cheek gently. Sanghyuk can feel the toll holding back is taking on him, and they both tremble under the weight of Hakyeon’s hunger. “I promise.”

“Okay.”

Hakyeon is on him before he can even blink, rolling him back on the bed and kissing him deeply. He’d never really enjoyed the sensation of being fed on, back when he was mortal, and he certainly doesn’t enjoy it now—but he gives what Hakyeon is trying to take, opening up his soul, winding a hand in Hakyeon’s hair to keep him close. They are maker and child, no closer bond, and even though it feels physically wrong it also feels strangely right on another level; logical, like this is the way things should be, the way nature intended. If it had to be anyone, he is glad it’s Hakyeon.

Hakyeon breaks the kiss of his own volition a few moments later, but doesn’t pull away. They’re both panting, wrapped around each other like lovers, and Sanghyuk takes this small slice of peace to thank whoever’s listening that he still has Hakyeon. “Are you okay?” he whispers, disentangling his hand from Hakyeon’s hair to stroke his back.

“Yeah.” Hakyeon nods, but Sanghyuk can taste the lie. Hakyeon is still hungry, but not desperately so; he can cope for now, and that’s all they need. “How’s Wonshik?”

It’s pointless to try and explain, so they just slide off the bed and head into the other room together. It’s only been minutes since Sanghyuk left Wonshik lying there—fifteen minutes at most—and yet his bandages are soaked through with blood, tracks of it streaking down his face, and Hakyeon gasps and takes a shaky step forward. “Is he…”

“He’s alive,” Sanghyuk blurts, placing a hand on Wonshik’s forehead like that would tell him anything. “At least I think he is. He and Hongbin passed out at the same time. The dawn…”

“I see.” Hakyeon peels up the edge of one of the bandages and winces at what’s there—the wound isn’t knitting together, as Sanghyuk had perversely hoped it would. It’s just the same as before, clean and raw and horrifically wide. “He really isn’t healing.”

Hakyeon’s talking to himself at this point, so Sanghyuk just stays silent.

“Oh, god. He’s not healing. He… I don’t know if he can heal. I don’t think he can. True immortal weapons, they… They cause you to hemorrhage. That’s the blood on his face.” Gently, Hakyeon wipes Wonshik’s face clean with his sleeve, treating him with such care it hurts Sanghyuk to see. “Maybe if we get him more blood, he’ll keep surviving. But he isn’t going to heal.”

“So either he stays like this forever—” As he watches, another line of blood runs out of Wonshik’s eyes, and he looks so much like a weeping statue that Sanghyuk resists the urge to shudder, “—with us constantly feeding him blood… Or he dies.”

“Or he dies,” Hakyeon echoes, his voice hollow.

//

They select another woman together. It’s quite easy for Hakyeon, even as empty as he is; all he has to do is knock on her door and ask for help—and considering he’s still covered in dried blood, he makes quite the convincing patient—and wait for her to invite him inside. When he calls for Sanghyuk a few minutes later, the woman is lying on the bed, dazed but with a happy smile on her face—and Hakyeon is looking more alive, some of the glow returned to his skin. “For Wonshik?” Sanghyuk quietly asks, and Hakyeon nods.

Sanghyuk keeps up a weak glamour on her as he scoops her up and takes her back to Hakyeon’s apartment, but it’s not like she really needs it; having so much of her energy taken all at once has left her a little loopy, and she keeps giggling and touching Sanghyuk’s lips. She stops giggling when she spots Wonshik on the bed, though, and goes still. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Wish I knew,” Sanghyuk mutters, and takes her wrist.

They move like they’ve been doing this for years. As Sanghyuk shifts his thumbnail to be sharp and pointed and pierces the woman’s wrist, Hakyeon slides around him and shakes Wonshik awake, or attempts to. When it becomes clear that he’s not really going to wake, Sanghyuk holds her wrist over his mouth, which Hakyeon opens gently, and lets her blood drip in. She’s quite alarmed by this, and starts wriggling so violently Sanghyuk’s worried he’s going to drop her—until Wonshik’s eyes snap open and lock onto hers, and she goes as limp as a ragdoll.

“More,” Wonshik rasps around her wrist, biting into it carelessly, blood spilling over his chin and onto his chest. “I need _more.”_

Hakyeon watches and waits until he’s had enough, and then pulls the woman free. Wonshik mewls and protests, but he only has enough time to struggle up onto his elbows before he passes out again, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Sanghyuk can’t decide whether he wants to throw up or cry.

//

“Can you stop pacing?”

Sanghyuk is curled up at one end of the sofa, watching Hakyeon pace back and forth across the living room floor incessantly. He probably has a point, as much as Hakyeon would hate to admit it; he just can’t seem to keep still, because when he does he feels like he’s going crazy. He’s been restless before, but this is on a whole new level. He genuinely cannot tell if he is losing his mind or not.

“Hyung, seriously.”

The fact that Sanghyuk is calling him hyung is more evidence to the fact that this is the most serious, fucked-up situation they have ever been in. And that would be fine if Hakyeon knew how to fix it, but he _doesn’t_ , and he hates feeling so powerless. He hates keeping vigil over Wonshik’s sleeping corpse, and he hates wiping blood from his face, and he hates staring out the window like he can see Jaehwan and Taekwoon, and he hates checking on Hongbin, and he hates Sanghyuk’s worried eyes following him everywhere he goes, and he hates the fact he nearly died—

“Hakyeon!”

“What?” he snaps, rounding on Sanghyuk. It’s unfair of him, he knows, but right now Sanghyuk is an easy target. “I’m trying to distract myself.”

Sanghyuk shrinks even smaller, and wraps his arms around his legs, tucking them close. “Alright. Sorry. It’s just… the pacing is driving me crazy.”

“It’s driving you crazy? Well, Sanghyuk, why don’t you join the fucking club? I’ve spent the last—” Hakyeon looks out the window and sees the sun is sinking low in the sky, and his stomach does a funny flip, “—twelve hours worrying myself sick because my best friend is in the other room, dying. I don’t know where the fuck my boyfriend disappeared to, because for all I know he’s dead, too. He’s fighting an enemy I know basically nothing about, and I’m completely fucking helpless. All I can do is stay here and worry myself sick and _pace back and forth!_ ”

By the time he finishes he’s screaming and Sanghyuk has shrunk back into the sofa, his face devoid of all colour, tears streaking down his cheeks. Even the sight of that does not garner sympathy. Hakyeon simply turns away and resumes pacing. He cannot stop digging his nails into the palm of his hand, hard enough until he sees blood bloom to the surface, and it’s this that he focuses on instead of the sound of Sanghyuk’s sniffles. He shouldn’t have lost it like that, he knows. But with every moment that passes without Wonshik healing, or Jaehwan appearing, he can feel his will to care slowly slipping away. If either of them die, he’ll—

“Hakyeon?” he hears from behind him, and his heart nearly stops in his chest.

Sure enough, when he turns it’s Jaehwan standing there, his wings spread wide. Hakyeon doesn’t even think to consider the fact that he’s covered in dried blood, his sword drawn. He just launches himself at Jaehwan so hard he staggers back a few steps before pulling Hakyeon close. “You’re alive,” he sobs, and then realises he’s throttling Jaehwan and releases his grip a little bit. “Oh, my god. I didn’t think… I didn’t know…”

“Alive and well,” Jaehwan says, but when Hakyeon pulls back he takes in the way he’s got fresh scars on his arms and even one on his neck, and knows that’s a lie. “How are you? How is everyone? Wonshik…”

Hakyeon can’t bring himself to say the words that he’s been denying since Sanghyuk spoke them out loud—Wonshik’s dying, he knows, but his brain completely shies away from the reality of it—and just stares at Jaehwan instead, hoping his expression can convey everything he needs to know. Jaehwan sags, slumping in Hakyeon’s arms, and closes his eyes. He looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I see. Show me.”

They turn, and as a group—“Hey, Sanghyuk,” Jaehwan whispers with a tired smile, and Hakyeon wishes dearly things had not come to this—shuffle to the bedroom. Wonshik’s awake when they enter, and Hakyeon drops Jaehwan’s hand to rush to his side, pushing him back down so he lies flat and doesn’t struggle. He’s more lucid than he was in the morning, and it’s this that makes the pain etched in his face so hard to see. He knows exactly what’s happening to him. “Fuck off,” he spits, and fights to sit up, glaring at Jaehwan like his gaze could kill. “Are you here to finish me off?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Hakyeon chides, completely ignoring the way his voice shakes. “He’s here to check on you, you ungrateful asshole.”

“Don’t call me an ungrateful asshole. I’m _dying_ ,” Wonshik says pointedly, and Hakyeon would laugh if he wasn’t on the verge of tears.

Jaehwan ignores the ruckus and shoulders past Hakyeon to look down at Wonshik. Paying no attention to the way he thrashes, albeit weakly, he peels back the bandages Sanghyuk has oh-so-carefully applied to inspect the wounds. Hakyeon is watching his face carefully, so he does not miss, cannot miss, the dark expression that crosses Jaehwan’s face like a shadow. He knew this whole situation is not good, but that just confirms it. A shiver runs down his spine. “What can we do?”

Briefly, Jaehwan closes his eyes and swallows. It’s almost like he’s steeling himself for something, and Hakyeon wants to turn and run from the room so he cannot hear what’s coming. It can’t be good.

“Have you been giving him blood?” Hakyeon nods, and Jaehwan purses his lips. “And he’s not healing. That much is obvious. The blood is just enough to keep him alive without actually healing him, because he can’t heal from Taekwoon’s sword wounds.”

“You’re not telling us anything we don’t already know.” When they turn, they see Hongbin standing in the doorway, his arms folded over his chest. He marches right up to Jaehwan, rather defiantly, and narrows his eyes. “And if you’re not being helpful, I’m going to agree with Wonshik and tell you to fuck off.”

The animosity in the room—all directed solely at Jaehwan—is completely suffocating, but Hakyeon doesn’t take a step back from his side, as much as he wants to. They are in this together, and he’s too concerned with Wonshik to bother caring about picking his battles with his friends. “I’m trying to work out what I can do to help him,” Jaehwan replies, his tone biting, and Hongbin flinches. “And if everyone would stop _yelling_ at me for two seconds, I would be able to tell you that I think I can heal him.”

That has the effect that Jaehwan was hoping for, Hakyeon can tell, because everyone falls silent and even Wonshik goes perfectly still. “What?” Hakyeon murmurs, turning towards Jaehwan in what seems like slow motion. “But Taekwoon’s sword—”

“I know.” Jaehwan’s face is grim. “But I don’t ever run out of energy, not like you.” He nods at the room, meaning all of them. “If I gave him enough, I could probably… override the damage Taekwoon’s sword has done, for lack of a better word. _Probably_.”

“Well? What the fuck are you waiting for?” Hongbin snaps, and Hakyeon can see his fangs flashing in the light as he speaks. Sanghyuk moves up behind him and places a hand on his shoulder, but Hongbin just shrugs free of it.

“Are you forgetting that I have just broken a three-hundred year truce with an angel?” Jaehwan’s gaze is level, unflinching, and Hongbin takes a step back. “An angel that could very well kill me if he gets the upper hand? I won’t die if I give Wonshik enough blood to heal him, but I will be severely weakened. And that is a luxury I cannot afford. Not now.” He turns away from Hongbin to look at Hakyeon, and Hakyeon knows, just from his expression, how sorry he is that things have turned out this way. “I will leave the choice up to you. If you want me to try to heal him, I will.”

Once again Hakyeon is forced to choose between the two he loves most, and the weight of that choice nearly brings him to his knees. Heal Wonshik and risk Jaehwan. Save Jaehwan but let Wonshik die. How on earth can he choose between them, when he knows he cannot be complete without either?

But then he looks down and sees Wonshik, blood streaked all over his face, looking small and terribly afraid, and knows he has his answer.

“Heal him,” he whispers, as much as he hates himself for saying those words. He will never forgive himself for this. “Please.”

He’d expected some preparation, but Jaehwan simply sits down on the edge of the bed and bites into his own wrist, holding it out to Wonshik like it’s no big deal. “No,” Wonshik snarls, and Hakyeon resists the urge to roll his eyes. “I’d rather die than drink from—”

The change comes over him instantly. He must catch the smell of Jaehwan’s blood, because his nostrils flare and his pupils dilate and his head snaps around to look at Jaehwan’s wrist. Before Hakyeon can even blink he grabs it with both hands and bites down, and he and Jaehwan both moan in sync, shudders ripping through their bodies at the same time. “Right,” Hakyeon mutters, turning away because the sight of that makes him feel slightly funny. He flaps his arms at Hongbin and Sanghyuk and begins herding them backwards. “Both of you out. You don’t need to see this.”

“I think I do,” Hongbin says, but his pupils are dilated too. It’s patently obvious he wants to bite Jaehwan as well, and Hakyeon isn’t particularly interested in sharing, so he just slams the door in their faces and heads back to the bed.

For a minute, nothing happens. There is nothing but the wet sound of Wonshik drinking Jaehwan’s blood, gnawing at his wrist in effort to get more, growling and tugging Jaehwan closer. For his part, Jaehwan has his eyes closed and is as still as possible, but Hakyeon can’t miss how the hand that Wonshik isn’t clutching is clenched in his lap, so tight his knuckles are going white. It’s the strangest thing Hakyeon has ever seen, which is saying a lot given the state of his life lately. If he just focuses on that—on how serene Jaehwan looks, even now, and how he can taste the energy swirling in the air around them—he can avoid thinking of the guilt that threatens to overwhelm him.

And then, right when he’s just about to ask if this is really working, Wonshik’s eyes snap open and Hakyeon stumbles backwards in shock.

Whereas before his eyes were filled with blood, now they’re clear, the pupils glowing red the way they should. As Hakyeon watches, the skin on his arm—the skin that had sloughed off under Hakyeon’s very own hands—begins to heal, reforming, and when Wonshik pulls Jaehwan closer he’s strong enough now that Jaehwan goes toppling backwards. Considering that the weapon of a true immortal is a death sentence, one that Sanghyuk himself succumbed to, Hakyeon cannot quite believe his eyes. He’d hoped, yes, but the reality is—

“Hakyeon,” Wonshik rasps, and Hakyeon automatically takes a step closer. “Don’t let me take too much.”

Hakyeon knows how caught up Wonshik gets when he feeds; it’s part of his very physiology, designed to keep him alive. The fact that he is resisting it enough to be able to say that to Hakyeon, to _want_ to stop, is enough. He takes another step closer and reaches for Jaehwan’s other hand, watching the two of them.

He’s seen Wonshik heal from wounds before, of course. That is nothing new. But the knowledge that these wounds are—should have been—fatal is still mind blowing, and as the wounds in his chest and stomach slowly close, Hakyeon feels himself relax, just a little bit. He doesn’t even have to pull Jaehwan away. Wonshik drops his wrist all of a sudden and scoots to the other side of the bed, sitting up and wrapping his arms around his legs, digging his nails into his arm. “Close the wound,” he hisses, and Hakyeon sees a shudder ripple through his entire body. “Please. I can’t stand it.”

“Does he really smell that good?” Hakyeon muses out loud as he does as he’s told, taking Jaehwan’s weeping wrist and licking at the wound in an attempt to close it. From his perspective, Jaehwan’s blood just tastes like blood, albeit with a distinctive flavour that’s not like anything he’s ever tasted before; but it’s not delicious. He does not crave it. But then, why would he?

“You have no idea,” Wonshik murmurs, and Hakyeon supposes he doesn’t.

He’d expected Jaehwan to crack some sort of joke at that, or even to raise his eyebrows in amusement. But instead he just sits up slowly, his every movement telegraphing exhaustion, and Hakyeon’s stomach clenches. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Jaehwan mutters, but he sounds so faint it’s like he is barely there. “Just… give me a moment.”

Hakyeon does, taking a step back and glancing between Wonshik and Jaehwan somewhat helplessly. He doesn’t know what to _do_ , a recurring theme that’s getting rather irritating. At least when Sanghyuk was turned he was in charge of the situation, had choices. Right now he just feels like he’s drowning under the weight of his own uselessness.

“I need to go,” Jaehwan says a moment later, looking up at Hakyeon. He looks deathly pale, paler than Hakyeon has ever seen him before, and he has odd dark circles under his eyes. “Taekwoon would have sensed… that. He might be on his way here right now.”

“Can’t you stay and rest? God knows you need—Jaehwan!” Hakyeon cuts himself off with a yell, because Jaehwan attempts to get up from the bed and immediately pitches forward, ending up in Hakyeon’s arms. “Fucking hell! You can’t leave like this!”

Jaehwan coughs, and it’s not until he does that Hakyeon realises he has never heard him cough before. “I have no choice,” he whispers, and puts his arms around Hakyeon, nuzzling his neck. “I won’t endanger you or your friends again. I swear.”

“But you—” is all Hakyeon manages to say before Jaehwan disappears, the heavy weight of his body suddenly gone, leaving him hugging the air. “Fuck.”

“The wound on his wrist wasn’t healing,” Wonshik says quietly, getting up and taking a shaky step forward with one hand on the wall. “I could smell it.”

Something great breaks inside of Hakyeon, and it’s so painful he gasps, unable to help himself. He rounds on Wonshik, not caring that his eyes are filling with tears that threaten to spill over. He’s too far gone for that. “Think about the sacrifice he made,” he growls, and Wonshik’s eyes widen. “There is a very good chance he gave his life for you.”

“I—” Wonshik starts, hands hovering in the air like he wants to reach for Hakyeon but is unsure of how he’ll react.

“Don’t,” Hakyeon blurts, shaking his head and backing away. “Just don’t. I will never forgive myself if he dies. I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive you, either.”

He turns and runs past Hongbin and Sanghyuk, sitting on the sofa in the living room. They both look up with mirrored expressions of alarm, but he does not even hesitate. He slams open the door to the balcony and takes a running leap over the edge, as he’s done so many times before; most of the time he’ll shift into a bird as his feet leave the ground, exploding into a flurry of feathers and beating wings in mid-air. This time, though, he free-falls, tumbling head-over-heels towards the ground, letting the wind whip the tears from his eyes so he can’t say he’s really crying. It’s only until he sees the road looming up towards him that he shudders and, with a shriek that is lost to the wind, shifts into a crow and spreads his wings, catching the air and slowing his fall.

He chases the moon across the sky for hours in a desperate attempt to distract himself from everything waiting for him back home, to try and avoid the guilt that threatens to crush him, if he lets it. He’s not sure it works, because whenever he looks down at the city below all he can see is Jaehwan, how weak he’d been, how resigned he had seemed. Hakyeon doesn’t know how to help him. He doesn’t even know if he _can_. The whims of the true immortals seem so far above him that he wonders why he got mixed up in this situation in the first place; he is fumbling and child-like in comparison, unable to comprehend, incapable of understanding.

The stars hold no answers for him, no matter how many times he pleads for one.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry to have two instalments back-to-back filled with emo. being back in australia has made me more than a little depressed and it's bleeding through into my writing LOL. but it's a record!! only three weeks between this one and the last one!! i'm getting faster, muahaha


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